I don’t have food

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In any conflict, the most important thing is to understand exactly what it is that’s conflicting with what. If you can’t define the opposition, or even name it, you can’t fight it. Worse yet is to fail to understand what it is you’re fight FOR.

Even those ostensibly opposed to ObamaCare are often heard conflating medical insurance with medical treatment, as though one equals the other– If you don’t have insurance, you have no “health care”. They are the same thing.

By that standard, since I do not pay into a common financial pool designed to insure against starvation, I have no food. Period. I do not eat. I’m already dead. I died back in 1958 or ’59 as soon as my mother ran out of milk. I’m a ghost. Boo!

The notion that I might simply pay directly for my food, as I wish, and choose my own food provider, with no middle man, no money pool and no qualifications (or, heaven forbid; I might even grow some of it myself) is apparently a foreign concept to those who claim to favor a free market. It simply doesn’t even enter their minds.

If those who are opposed to a nationalized starvation insurance program are telling me I have no food, or if those opposed to ObamaCare are talking about people who have no healthcare, they are insane. They are not on my side. They have been co-opted by the enemy. They are blind, blithering, gibbering idiots, or zombies, who can’t even understand their own words, and yet we tolerate and entertain this insanity. Liberty isn’t even on the table for discussion. We can’t even speak of it, or even define it, and so how can we claim to fight for it?

What’s wrong with us?

Quote of the day—Violence Policy Center

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Firearms are currently exempt from the health and safety laws that apply to every other consumer product in America, from toasters to teddy bears. Applying those same standards to guns is the real key to reducing firearm death and injury in America. Under these standards, handguns would be banned because of their high risk and low utility.

Violence Policy Center
Cited March 16, 1999 by GunCite
The False Hope of the Smart Gun
[I find it interesting that the 2013 version of this paper has removed the last sentence of the above paragraph.—Joe]

When will they issue tags?

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I just finished Emily Gets Her Gun: …But Obama Wants to Take Yours.

I had sort of followed her Washington Times series and hadn’t really planned on getting the book. I was sort of tempted when she won an award at the Gun Rights Policy Conference:

EmilyAlan

Finally I gave in and purchased the audible version so I could listen to it while driving. I’m not sure I should be driving when read it though. It generated a lot of adrenaline.

My thoughts on the book are that I’m going to do my best to avoid going to D.C. until you can get hunting tags for D.C. politicians and police.

The book should have a stronger title. Something like “The Most Dangerous City in the Nation is a Police State”. Or maybe “In D.C. Only Criminals and Cops Have Guns and You Can’t Distinguish Between Them.”

It is really, really bad in D.C. The roadblocks they put up to prevent you from getting or using a gun are bad enough. I knew about them and sort of accepted that is the way it is going to be until the Federal courts slap them down. But they way they treat gun owners even if you are within the law is criminal. The police have literally told gun owners, “I don’t have time for Constitutional B.S.” It’s not just the 2nd Amendment they despise. The ignoring of the 4th Amendment and due process is standard operating procedure.

The politicians and police committing these crimes cannot believe they are innocent of wrongdoing or protecting the innocent. Their actions are so atrocious that I’m serious when I say there should be hunting tags issued for them.

It will never happen you say? Hmmm…

Times change.

How long was it from the time Saddam Hussein, his sons, and thugs were comfortable in their position of power in Iraq until they had “dead or alive” bounties on their heads? Maybe a year or two at most?

How long was it from the time Mussolini, Hitler, and their thugs were in comfortable positions power until they were hunted? Maybe a couple of years. And Hitler’s thugs were hunted for several decades after their crimes.

How long was it from the time Nicolae Ceauşescu and his thugs were comfortably in power until they were being hunted? If you are generous it was about two weeks.

I have to conclude that when the government is a police state things can change extremely rapidly. It just might be possible there will come a time, within my lifetime, when people will be able to get hunting tags for the thugs in D.C.

Silver ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

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While looking for something else I stumbled across one ounce silver rounds with ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ on them:

ag47_coin_bu_-_sample1ozt_silver_love_reverse_bu_2

I find it interesting you can only purchase these in quantity 1:

1ozt_silv_2nd_amend_round_obverse1ozt_silv_2nd_amend_round_reverse

You can also get an ounce of silver in .45 ACP:

1ozt_silver_45_bullet

Quote of the day—Jonah Goldberg

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This has been one of the most enjoyable political moments of my lifetime. I wake up in the morning and rush to find my just-delivered newspaper with a joyful expectation of worsening news so intense, I feel like Morgan Freeman should be narrating my trek to the front lawn. Indeed, not since Dan Rather handcuffed himself to a fraudulent typewriter, hurled it into the abyss, and saw his career plummet like Ted Kennedy was behind the wheel have I enjoyed a story more.

Alas, the English language is not well equipped to capture the sensation I’m describing, which is why we must all thank the Germans for giving us the term “schadenfreude” — the joy one feels at the misfortune or failure of others. The primary wellspring of schadenfreude can be attributed to Barack Obama’s hubris — another immigrant word, which means a sinful pride or arrogance that causes someone to believe he has a godlike immunity to the rules of life.

Jonah Goldberg
November 14, 2013
Obamacare Schadenfreudarama: It feels pretty good to watch the whole thing fail.
[H/T to John Balog in the comments here.

It is great to see that proponents of big government get whacked alongside the head with the clue-by-four of reality. Most of the time they are smart enough and deceptive enough to hide the tragedy of their misdeeds by diffusing it through time and layers of obfuscation that enable them to avoid taking the blame for the damage done. This time they reached way too far. It’s obvious to all but the most dedicated Marxists that this is a failure that directly affects millions and millions of people. And this time it will be much more difficult to blame on others.

Even these left wingers are jumping ship:

Of course there are those who view the Obamacare failure as a good thing:

Obama has a Second Chance to do what he should have done when first elected in 2008 with the criminally LOOTING Banking and Wall Street-scare EMPIRE (but which he didn’t have the guts to do then) —- he would have an amazing chance to do a rare ‘re-do’, and NATIONALIZE both the crooked looting Health-scare private corporate looting industry, AND go back and NATIONALIZE the even more obvious crooked looting Financial-Scare Industry — and insure (no pun intended) that important PUBLIC GOODS, like Health Care and Banking are removed from the hands of the PRIVATE CROOKS and returned to the hands of the democratic citizens who deserve not to be further ******.

Do not be complacent. This is a crisis and we must take advantage of it because you know the Marxists will if we don’t.—Joe]

Gun Song- Annie Get Your Gun by Squeeze

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A short one this week.

Have a good Friday and weekend.

Quote of the day—Richard O. Simpson

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My general counsel tells me that while firearms are exempted from our jurisdiction under the Consumer Product Safety Act, we could possibly ban bullets under the Hazardous Substances Act.

Richard O. Simpson
1973
Chairman, U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.
[Via GunCite.

The current efforts to ban lead bullets are in part a watered down version of the same mindset and is getting much better traction.—Joe]

Train wreck

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The Whitehouse is panic stricken over the failure of Obamacare and didn’t just trip and fall on their face this morning. They quadrupled down on their live demonstration of failure.

It was obvious to even an outsider like me that they had no clue what they were doing when they made their announcement this morning. Just what do you think the insiders that know in far more detail are going to say and do? I’m not just talking about people who work for the insurance industry. The insurance industry might be successfully demonized by Obama and friends and made to be the scape-goat for Obama’s mess. I’m talking about all the government regulators of insurance. The insurance industry is highly regulated by the states. While these regulators may not understand or approve of the free market you can be sure that after a few years of contact with the insurance industry they know a thing or two about the industry.

What are these regulators are going to say about these changes? We don’t have to do much speculation. The clues are coming in:

Washington later became the first state to announce that it would not allow insurers to extend their policies. Saying that its state-based exchange was “up and running and successfully enrolling thousands of consumers,” Mike Kreidler, the Washington state insurance commissioner, expressed “serious concerns” about Obama’s move and “its potential impact on the overall stability of our health insurance market.”

“In the interest of keeping the consumer protections we have enacted and ensuring that we keep health insurance costs down for all consumers, we are staying the course,” he said in a statement Thursday afternoon.

That is the “for the public” version. What almost for certain is being said in back channels to representatives in Congress and the Whitehouse is that changes such as these would violate state law. Obama does not have dictatorial powers, as much as he might like to, and he may be able to find some legal loophole to avoid or delay enforcing Federal law upon the beleaguered insurance companies. But he cannot demand insurance companies bypass state processes and laws to make changes he thinks will work. Furthermore these people know the Whitehouse changes are complete nonsense.

Obamacare is like a train. The millions of people who are losing their insurance are the passengers on this train. The train entered a tunnel at full speed only to find the tracks weren’t fastened down (the website being non-functional). But the train can’t stop. It’s still sliding, sparks flying as the wheels get ripped off on the rocks, into the end of the tunnel which could not be dug through the rocks made impenetrable by the laws of economics. At this point there is nothing the supporters of Obamacare can do but watch the crash and attempt to avoid prosecution.

The tragedy is that the politicians responsible for the train wreck made sure they were not on the train. But this should not be a surprise to anyone. Liberals love forcing people onto trains. Obama may say he’s not a dictator but he has a fair amount in common with some of them. The obvious match being dictators who forced other people on trains which carried them to their deaths.

What media bias?

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USA Today has an article today about “Armed protesters rattle Texas moms’ gun-control meeting”. They include the complete picture supplied by the anti-gun implying they were laying in wait to attack someone:

1384196598000-Texas-moms

They severely cropped the picture showing they were posing for a picture:

1384203283000-Open-Carry-photo

Remember the original version?

Viewpoint1

To be fair, they did provide the rest of the text if you read the entire article. But why crop it out? What media bias?

Simple solutions from simple minds

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President Obama said:

With millions of consumers getting cancellation notices for their current health plans, President Obama announced Thursday that he will encourage insurance companies to continue offering their customers the same health plans next year.

“This fix won’t solve every problem for every person,” Obama said, saying he would consider legislative action to go further. But he appeared to rule out the sort of legislation that House Republicans are pushing, which would allow insurance companies to continue selling new policies, indefinitely, that would not comply with the law’s new consumer standards.

“I will not accept” legislation that would “drag us back to a broken system,” Obama said.

He and his supporters have no idea what they are doing.

  1. The insurance companies will be “encouraged” to break the law? They cannot legally still offer those plans.
  2. The people who will keep their old plans are those who are at low risk of needing expensive health care. Their premiums were to pay for those at high risk. Taking them out of the pool will mean the premiums for those remaining will have to go up.
  3. The insurance companies spent the last few years working to estimate the risks, set prices based on those risks, and restructure their organizations to work with the new mandates. It will take a similar amount of time to revert back and support the system they were forced to abandon.
  4. Restructuring of the insurance companies resulting in employees going to different jobs within the company or being laid off. Those changes cannot be undone in a short period of time. A lot of that expertise has been essentially vaporized by Obamacare.

Not only did the Democrats have no constitutional authority to inflict this upon the people but they had no idea what they were doing. They believe changing the laws of economics is as simple as changing the laws of the nation. The reality is that the laws of economics are as immutable as the laws of physics. To believe that Obamacare could make health insurance cheaper and more accessible to everyone is to believe perpetual motion machines are possible.

There will probably always be simple minded people that believe in perpetual motion and we have present day proof of that in those that voted for and support Obamacare.

Update: An insurance industry insider just told me: “Your post is exactly what we were just talking about. The magnitude is staggering.”

Bigotry is alive and well

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Bigotry

Via Linoge.

@davidhorsey at @latimes made the cartoon at the top. It is a gross misrepresentation of what actually happened. The poster at the bottom is actual political material from sometime during reconstruction after the Civil War.

Here is another poster created by a northern Democrat:

two-platforms-pennsylvania-democrat-1866-v2

For more background on the Democrat’s political platforms from that era read this and this.

Now that racial bigotry is no longer fashionable Democrats have turned to prejudice and bigotry against gun owners. I don’t think it was a coincidence that as the civil rights movement of the 1960’s gained traction the anti-gun movement gained traction as well. The Gun Control Act of 1968 passed as a means of restricting access to guns by blacks.

Anti-gun people are the KKK of the 21st Century. There were members of the KKK that were tried and sent to jail decades after their crimes. The intervening years enabled prosecutors to find juries who would convict them. The criminals couldn’t imagine the political winds changing so much that they could be charged with a crime for beating or lynching a black man.

Today the anti-gun people who want us dead and actively pursue legislation to violate our rights cannot imagine they will ever be held responsible for their actions. But it is plausible we can do the same with the crimes these people are committing today. However unlikely it seems today it is still possible. And if we don’t work toward that goal then it won’t ever happen. If we work toward that goal we might achieve it. Opportunities will arise and we will take advantage of them to make progress on that path. The Internet is forever and the evidence will be there when the prosecutors decide to start enforcing the law.

Quote of the day—Anonymous Conservative

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The phases are Crisis, High, Awakening, and Unraveling. Here, Crisis is r-psychologies confronted by the shortage of K-selection. This turmoil produces an adaptive shift in the population’s psychology towards a more K-selected, politically Conservative psychology. High is the environment of r-selected resource excess that is produced by a majority K-selected populace, living in an environment where these rewards are enjoyed by those who produce them. Awakening and Unraveling are just the leftists gradually increasing in number due to the r-selection, and fucking up a good thing until it all falls apart, and the Crisis returns.

There is one huge difference this time, and that is our use of public debt to increase resource availability and extend the period of r-selection. This has allowed for a slight increase in the population’s shift towards the r-psychology in this cycle, and lengthened the period of Unraveling. That all will increase the magnitude of the Crisis we will face. This would have been predictable, if you had viewed the increases in national debt which began around 1980 in the context of this work . The disturbing aspect of this is that when the collapse comes, the hardcore Left will be particularly loony, since their amygdalae have essentially no adaptation to a more free, competitive environment. Today, not having free government healthcare, and free cellphones is the same to them as being tossed into Lord of the Flies. When things get so bad that there is no food or housing, they will be capable of anything. The coming Crisis will be epic.

Anonymous Conservative
June 14, 2013
Strauss and Howe’s Generational Theory, in the Context of r/K Theory
[What the author of the post claims will happen is that as society collapses the liberal psychology (“r-selected” people) will be unable to handle it and non-liberals (“K-selected” people) will physically, environmentally, and evolutionarily dominate the situation and come out of the crisis far better than the liberals.

Ry and I were discussion something a bit tangential to this yesterday and what he said is valid. Paraphrasing, “We need to be careful reading this stuff because it matches what we believe and want to believe.”

Still, I have ordered the book and look forward to listening to it.—Joe]

Hostage!

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The leftist mind thrives on clinging to its victim status. We make that work against us. We’re the problem insofar as we entertain their victim status assertions. Here’s a short conversation that took place tonight between me and a loved one;

LO; “I need (such and such help from you).”
Me; “I can do that, but you’ll need to (clean up a years old, nagging financial matter)….that’s my pre condition. It’s as simple as that.”
LO; “blah blah blah…Wait. That’s your pre condition?! So you’re holding me hostage!! Anger. Body language indicates a feeling of having gotten one over on me. Now I’ve crossed a line that shouldn’t have been crossed, or so I’m supposed to believe. I am a piece of crap, or so I’m supposed to believe. I should be wary of the pain that’s going to come from this transgression, and that wariness should alter my position on the matter. I should fold, and then beg forgiveness for my evil ways and my generally evil constitution.
Me; (pause) Yes. If getting you to do the right thing is holding you hostage, then I’m definitely holding you hostage” and I just look LO in the eye, and then add; “You need to take care of this (nagging financial matter) right away too, not weeks or months from now, but within days.”
LO; “I’ll take care of it by the weekend. You have my word.”
And that was that. LO will love me for it, and love LO’s self for it. Not for the help, mind you, but for the insistence, as a condition for the help, that LO do what we both know is the right thing. Even right now, because all the tension and angst and doubt has been taken away and the right decision has been made on good terms, LO is being all chatty and friendly with me, which doesn’t happen very often.

This was not planned. This is not a tactic. It was not manipulation or intimidation, competition or one-upmanship. It cannot be planned. It was love, and love doesn’t back down, feel guilty, try to illicit guilt or demand anything in return. It doesn’t need to keep its story straight or feed an ego and doesn’t allow itself to be distracted, upset or derailed. It’s just holding your ground for the right reason and it is the simplest thing ever. I only bring it up because it’s something I haven’t understood well enough in the past, resulting in much pain and suffering.

Would that I’d known this simple and obvious thing a few decades ago…

So you could say that this is a testimony, just one example of things going the right way when so many times they’ve gone the wrong way.

And so it is the reason, or the mechanism, by which a lot of people seek “freedom” from right, do to wrong, while others seek freedom from wrong, to do right. Both the communists and the libertarians see themselves as would-be liberators. Each sees the other as the problem standing in their way. But one is beautifully right and the other is horribly wrong.

That’s where we get the term “liberation theology” as practiced by the likes of Rev. Wright. They see the “constraints” of true freedom and true justice, and of property rights, responsibility and so on, as chains of bondage. They’re being held hostage in that sense and we do practically nothing to correct them. Instead, as a whole, we appease them and try not to offend them too much, trying to make ourselves look good in their wrong-seeing eyes. We don’t stand up to the challenge purely on principle and make the clear case, fearless, insistent and without rancor, and they hate us for it. We fail their test.

Quote of the day—Roger Rosenblatt

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As for the Second Amendment, it may pose an inconvenience for gun-control advocates, but no more an inconvenience than the First Amendment…

Lasting social change usually occurs when people decide to do something they know they ought to have done long ago but have kept the knowledge private. This, I believe, is what happened with civil rights, and it is happening with guns. I doubt that it will be 25 years before we’re rid of the things. In 10 years, even five, we could be looking back on the past three decades of gun violence in America the way one once looked back upon 18th century madhouses. I think we are already doing so but not saying so.

Roger Rosenblatt
August 2, 1999
Get rid of the damned things
[An “inconvenience”? That should tell you all you need to know about these people. Specific enumerated rights are an “inconvenience” when they are “doing the right thing”. This wasn’t Pravda, Democratic Underground or some other openly communistic forum. This was in Time magazine.

This is from the dark ages when even at the high levels of professional gun rights advocates were telling me, “It will all be over in 10 years.” It’s now been nearly 15 years and we are in a much stronger position than we were in 1999. Public carry of a firearm is now legal in all 50 states with only D.C. still in the dark ages. 41 states have shall issue concealed carry and three states have constitutional carry.

What Rosenblatt didn’t and perhaps still doesn’t understand is that 100 million gun owners with 300 million guns buying 10 billion rounds of ammunition each year is going to be more “inconvenient” than words on a piece of paper written 200+ years ago when he sends someone by to “get rid of the damned things”.—Joe]

Criminal psychology

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I’m in the process of making a post on personality disorders, liberalism, and how to deal with them. I read a fascinating blog post about it. It is very long but awesome. I’ll get my synopsis out in a day or three.

In the mean time I engaged an anti-gun person on Twitter to do some testing. Here is the result:

@DanielHupke @_Garreth_ If only that BOOM was another #gunbully eating his gun.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@ConcldCourier @snwflk713 @_Garreth_ @PatriotTay @MomsDemand Come on baby, suck that gun, pull that trigger.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@ConcldCourier @snwflk713 @_Garreth_ @PatriotTay @MomsDemand Suck the bullets out!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

Eh. There wasn’t any bullying to be seen. There was only law-abiding citizens exercising their rights. @rosesindew @HelloPoodle

— Linoge (@linoge_wotc) November 12, 2013

@linoge_wotc @rosesindew Funny how THAT got you needing to advertise your gun-gun.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

I hate to break it to you, but I’ve been lawfully bearing arms for over a decade now. #assumption #fail @HelloPoodle @rosesindew

— Linoge (@linoge_wotc) November 12, 2013

@linoge_wotc @rosesindew So what? Why is it such a big deal that you’ve got to point your guns at people?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @linoge_wotc @rosesindew People that attempt to infringe our rights are either ignorant or criminals: http://t.co/7VZA2zFoAJ

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew You have every right to shoot yourselves. Stay in your own yard & play together.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

HelloPoodle @linoge_wotc @rosesindew We do. Our yard is called the United States of America. If you don’t like it go someplace else.

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc I love watching cunts like you get obsessed with me. Love it. Hilarious. Shows your true motives.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew Nah, I got the anchor babies on ObamaCare now. Lots of free shit, ya know? Hoo hoo ha ha #RWNJ

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc it’s called exposing gun control advocates as the bullies they are, ur doing a great job helping me!

— Christine Larios (@rosesindew) November 12, 2013

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc Nah, you’re just a cunt who wanted attention & sympathy she didn’t get. A little ego maniacal.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Keep talking about your big guns & how nobody is gunna take ’em. Paranoid much?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc Like your mom?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc again thanks for proving me right over and over

— Christine Larios (@rosesindew) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc more like you

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc Yes, we’ve proven you’re a cunt & this isn’t about guns at all. Just that you’re scum.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc My, aren’t you the attention whore. Do a cartwheel now!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc People who conspire to infringe the rights of others go to prison. You should find a good lawyer.

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Oooohh you’re being conspired against now. Tin foil hat a little tight?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc You have had EVERY opportunity to show responsibility in gun ownership. But what have you chosen to do?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc I’m just gathering evidence to be submitted at your trial.

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Public opinion is drastically rising against you. Again, it’s about the tea party crap, not guns.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc I’m a certified firearms instructor. What have you done beside commit crimes against gun owners?

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc You’re just too fucking stupid to realize you don’t point guns at soccer moms to get their support.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc I’ll alert the press. This should be good.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc What “crimes” are being done to you? Are you feeling unsafe again? They’re coming for you!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc I hope your delusions are worth it. It must be lonely in your imaginary world: http://t.co/5xI0QbHMsF

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc http://t.co/7VZA2zFoAJ

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Well, you have your guns. For now.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc That sounds like a threat. It’s going into your file.

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc You really are fucking paranoid. Not sure you should have weapons. @NewYorkFBI

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Ooooooh, the teatard is scary!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Don’t you mean FOIL? They’re out there. Whop whop! Here come the black helicopters!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

So @HelloPoodle is back to wishing death on those she disagrees with? Must suck to be that consumed by hate. @rosesindew @JoeHuffman

— Linoge (@linoge_wotc) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew You wood think a poodle would be more laid back. Must be tough having a bark & no bite

— Hal (@Hal_Maine) November 12, 2013

@linoge_wotc @rosesindew @JoeHuffman Oh, look, you’re back for more. Actually, it’s fun hating scum suckers like you. Dumb pig.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@Hal_Maine @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew Yeah, I better show everybody my gun so they’ll wonder if I might be dangerous.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@Hal_Maine @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew Gotta make sure you let everybody know you’re carrying though, right? NRA bumper sticker?

Securing your arms

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It’s funny how the anti-rights cultists always have exceptions for governments and their minions. We peons are expected to just suck it up, because we are not as professional, as well trained in their use, and as well screened for psychological problems, and all the rest. Then we see cases like this, where the FBI SWAT team loses a couple of their rifles, and M16 and a “sniper rifle,” and they are considering if they should be charged with “improper storage.” Duh, ya’ think? This being Mass people freaked of course, and they also offered $20k for a reward for less than $5k worth of guns.It looks like the guns have been recovered, but the FBI isn’t saying anything, saying it’s because it’s an ongoing investigation, not just that it’s full-on CYA.

H/T to Paul.

Quote of the day—President Obama

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It ought to lead to some sort of transformation. That’s what happened in other countries when they experienced similar tragedies. In the United Kingdom, in Australia, when just a single mass shooting occurred in those countries, they understood that there was nothing ordinary about this kind of carnage. They endured great heartbreak, but they also mobilized and they changed, and mass shootings became a great rarity

…

The main difference that sets our nation apart, what makes us so susceptible to so many mass shootings, is that we don’t do enough — we don’t take the basic, common-sense actions to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and dangerous people. What’s different in America is it’s easy to get your hands on gun — and a lot of us know this.

…

Well, I cannot accept that. I do not accept that we cannot find a common-sense way to preserve our traditions, including our basic Second Amendment freedoms and the rights of law-abiding gun owners, while at the same time reducing the gun violence that unleashes so much mayhem on a regular basis.

President Obama
September 22, 2013
Remarks by the President at the Memorial Service for Victims of the Navy Yard Shooting
[H/T to Jay F. for the email.

Read that last paragraph carefully. He says we can “preserve our traditions, including our basic Second Amendment freedoms”. That he added the word “basic” there is highly suspicious. Do you suppose he considers muzzle loading long guns as “basic” but not semi-autos firearms or handguns? That would be consistent with his admiration for Australia and England which banned extensive classes of firearms including semi-autos and handguns. And he did push hard for the latest “assault weapon” ban.

But I think I can rephrase his words just a bit to make his intent more clear:

Just like your health insurance, if you like your guns you can keep your guns.

Isn’t that better? What could be ambiguous about that? It’s good to have clarity.—Joe]

Psychology of mass shooters

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I took a lot of psychology classes in college and, IIRC, got straight A’s in them. I really enjoyed them. I thought it was fascinating.

So it isn’t surprising this article was of extreme interest to me:

Massacre killers are typically marked by what are considered personality disorders: grandiosity, resentment, self-righteousness, a sense of entitlement. They become, says Dr. Knoll, ” ‘collectors of injustice’ who nurture their wounded narcissism.” To preserve their egos, they exaggerate past humiliations and externalize their anger, blaming others for their frustrations. They develop violent fantasies of heroic revenge against an uncaring world.

…

Mass shooters aim to tell a story through their actions. They create a narrative about how the world has forced them to act, and then must persuade themselves to believe it. The final step is crafting the story for others and telling it through spoken warnings beforehand, taunting words to victims or manifestos created for public airing.

What these findings suggest is that mass shootings are a kind of theater. Their purpose is essentially terrorism—minus, in most cases, a political agenda. The public spectacle, the mass slaughter of mostly random victims, is meant to be seen as an attack against society itself. The typical consummation of the act in suicide denies the course of justice, giving the shooter ultimate and final control.

We call mass shootings senseless not only because of the gross disregard for life but because they defy the ordinary motives for violence—robbery, envy, personal grievance—reasons we can condemn but at least wrap our minds around. But mass killings seem like a plague dispatched from some inhuman realm. They don’t just ignore our most basic ideas of justice but assault them directly.

The perverse truth is that this senselessness is just the point of mass shootings: It is the means by which the perpetrator seeks to make us feel his hatred. Like terrorists, mass shooters can be seen, in a limited sense, as rational actors, who know that if they follow the right steps they will produce the desired effect in the public consciousness.

Part of this calculus of evil is competition. Dr. Mullen spoke to a perpetrator who “gleefully admitted that he was ‘going for the record.’ ” Investigators found that the Newtown shooter kept a “score sheet” of previous mass shootings. He may have deliberately calculated how to maximize the grotesqueness of his act.

The human mind is a marvelous and sometimes bizarre thing. I’ve seen some really strange behavior from people with personality disorders. Probably the best short story is that I know someone who convinced a judge that his being caught sitting on his ex-wife’s chest on the sidewalk punching her in the face was self-defense.

Stacy, my counselor, told me people with personality disorders cannot, or will not, admit there is a problem with themselves. It’s always someone else’s fault. Keep that in mind. It’s a huge telltale. Another one, also from Stacy, is that personality disorder symptoms are more prominent when they are interacting with people in close personal relationships with. Family members and spouses get the worst of it. Co-workers and strangers may think they are perfectly normal people.

Attempting to interact with them can be challenging. Having a “model” to help understand, identify, and predict their behavior is incredibly useful. We owe a big thanks to the author of this article and the researchers who investigated the psychology of these people.

H/T Say Uncle.

The problem is

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Via the NRA.

From Massachusetts:

Selectman Barry Greenfield introduced an enforcement discussion Wednesday that he hopes will lead to the safeguarding of guns in town…

The problem, he said, is that police do not have the authority, granted by a local ordinance, to enforce the law and inspect the safeguarding of guns at the homes of the 600 registered gun owners in town.

Fourth Amendment rights are apparently a mere discussion point because later he says, “There are civil liberty matters to consider”.

The real problem here is that they have a registry of a protected class of people. In this case it is gun owners but it doesn’t matter what the name of the minority or what the government justification for it is. Registries of Christians/Catholics/Muslims/Jews/Japanese/Germans/Italians have all been used for oppression someplace or sometime. A registry of a people exercising constitutionally protected right is a precursor to direct infringement of that right. Requiring the registration of those exercising their rights has a chilling effect on the free exercise of those rights and is unconstitutional.

In allowing himself to be quoted Barry Greenfield has admitted he is conspiring to commit felonies. He should review 18 USC 241 and 18 USC 242, voluntarily surrender to authorities, and sign a written confession. If he does I could see making a case for a good plea deal. Otherwise someday those words could be used at his trial.

BarryGreenfield
Barry Greenfield

Sebastian recommends tar and feathers.

Thirdpower points out the slippery slope is real.

11th day of the 11th month

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It’s Veterans day, commemorating the end of world War One, The Great War. It’s good that it ended, but because the politicians didn’t know much about psychology or economics, they ended it badly, guaranteeing  a rematch. Ouch. In any case, just a few thoughts.

I volunteered and served in the Army Reserve. Drove boats for them – at the time is was MOS 12C (bridge crewman) a subcategory of combat engineer specializing in bridging. Also spent time packing an M60 around. I was in during the first Gulf War but not deployed. I did my six years and got out. My dad and his brother were both drafted around the Korean War, served their time, got out. My mom’s brother was career Air Force, and her dad was in during the 30’s (army, horse- and mule-back unit) and WW II (coastal patrol, kind of vague on navy vs coastguard). My brother in law is retired regular AF, now in the AF reserves as an E9, senior NCO on the airbase. A great uncle was in the Spanish American war. My wife’s “adoptive” dad was a gunner in WW II on a troop transport, saw kamikaze attacks landing troops on Okinawa. [Later edit: Oh, yes, I don’t want to forget the great aunt that was a WAAC. She wound up in North Africa in WW II]

I always thought it interesting that there was never much talk about “duty” and all, no strong service rivalry. It was just sort of a “respectable thing to do if it was a good fit” sort of thing, but it still rubbed off on me that it was more of a “very good thing to do unless it was a very bad fit.” I know it’s not for everyone. But it is done for everyone, even those that hate the military – and I think that’s one of those things that galls the peace-niks on the left most. They can’t stand the idea that maybe the military where they couldn’t or wouldn’t serve MIGHT be necessary, and really MIGHT be doing it for them as well, and that level of selflessness from people they despise and look down on just totally rubs them raw. On the other side of the coin, for all the inter-service rivalry, trash-talking and  competition, at the end of the day they all respect each others signing up and going through it.

But it seems like there are increasingly two Americas, one that doesn’t expect it deserves anything, and as a result it volunteers and serves (or at least supports and understands those that do), and those that expect to be given a lot, have a sense of entitlement, and at the some time don’t serve or honestly respect those that do. Not sure what it all means, or where that’ll lead, but it doesn’t strike me as a good thing.

Those those that served, cheers! To those that understand, thanks for your support.